The Sun is Going Down
by aeternium
Summary: Pietros has a history with older men, but he is no kept boy.


There is a small skylight just outside the door, and when the angle is right Barca likes to sit and bask in the glowing crack of moonlight that tiptoes its way past locks and bars into their cell. It's at times like these, when he awakens to find their bed cold, that Pietros promptly returns his eyes to rest and allows his lover to continue meditation in peace.

Barca cannot be swayed to pray, not after his gods forsook his city and his father, so Pietros lightly exhales and inhales and thinks that maybe Barca's mind turns to his family instead. The father and brothers who no longer tread the ground of this world, the mother who took her own life before she could be forced to serve the Romans, the sisters, both free and otherwise, all in distant lands. Pietros thinks that maybe that in itself is a kind of prayer.

It is for him. What good are impartial deities when the shadows of a distant past hold a closer place in your heart?

Pietros first tells Barca about them when he has been at the ludus for not quite two months.

"Your name," the gladiator asks. "You are Greek?"

The bird – beautiful, black with a flash of bright blue – they have been trying to coax closer has thought better of it and flown away, and they are left sitting without a prize on the yard steps in the early dusk when Barca breaks the quiet. Pietros nearly laughs, in part out of surprise and apprehension, but mostly because, well, does he _look_ Greek?

"Egyptian," he replies. "But the dominus whose house I was born to, his wife was Greek. She named us."

"Us?"

"Dareios and Nike and Milo and I. My brothers and sister."

"Do you miss them?"

The question comes too quickly to have been thought out, and for a moment Pietros wonders whether Barca wishes he could take back such an out-of-turn query, whether he should answer it at all. From villa to ludus and the changing over of domini, loss is the one thing that stays constant in a slave's life. Pietros knows this better than Barca, who is freeborn, and not so many years have passed since he remained so. Yet one learns quickly.

"Much time has gone by since I last saw them," he answers finally. He does not mean to be evasive, nor does he wish to dwell on the subject.

Lightning quickens through his arm at Barca's surprisingly delicate touch upon his wrist, his thumb grazing lightly over the silver circlet, his fingers brushing unhurriedly across the soft underside, a fractional distance from a quickening pulse. The sudden absence of the Carthaginian's hand upon his is as sharply felt, and, failing to push aside the distinct feeling that he has swallowed his own esophagus, he lifts his gaze to meet Barca's.

Many have taken him to their bed before now. Thank the gods he was never beautiful enough to be sold to a whorehouse, but a young, fit houseboy cannot hope to last long untouched, even if the dominus has no appetite for such fare. There is always a guard, or a guest, or a fellow slave if commanded. The son of his dominus first took him when he was thirteen or so, and after that Pietros generally managed to enjoy himself well enough to get on with – the innocence of his youthful looks saw to it that he was never subjected to much more than a quick fuck and a fond pinch to see him on his way – yet never before has Pietros felt such a stirring within him elicited by the merest of touches.

He does not trust himself to speak, and they both say nothing for a long time.

Barca brushes his cheek later when they turn to enter the ludus, and Pietros does not return to his own cell that night.

Years later, Pietros observes his lover through eyelash and shadow, a tower of boastful muscle and power at rest. Here in the quiet sanctuary of their cell, amidst the distant rustling wind and soft occasional coo of feathered companions, there is no one for his gladiator love to impress, none to menace for the sake of securing both of their protection.

Several long braids are coming unraveled at the ends. He longs to climb from the hard bed and smooth them back into tight, neat twists before pressing his hands and then his lips to the skin and smell of dusty cinnamon he loves so well.

Yet he cannot bring himself to do it.

Instead, Pietros remains where he lies, and breathes, and basks in the realization that had come all those years – yet not so long – ago, when Barca had first taken him to his bed, the same one upon which he now rests. He glows in the remembrance of the anticipation and uncertainty melted to pure desire. The small curve of a smile brushes his lips, a touch of the ghost of Barca's promise to earn their freedom during last year's rains, and the golden hum that was to know he was wanted, not just for that moment, in that night, but for always.


End file.
